Shopfloor Apprentices under a Lean Labour Process: Insights from a British Car Plant

Abstract

This article considers how lean production changes the shopfloor learning experience of apprentices. Insights from labour process and communities of practice literature are used to interrogate the study. Evidence derives from apprentices’ experiences in a British car assembly plant across several decades. The study compares pre-lean apprentices’ experiences with those who learn under lean, considering how lean might reshape apprentices’ shopfloor interactions with the plant community of practice. It finds that lean appears unfavourable to apprentices’ integration into the community of practice by debilitating learning opportunities with mentors. The article concludes by theorising how inefficiency and waste may aid on-the-job learning for workplace apprentices. © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

Author Keywords

Apprenticeship communities of practice apprentice car industry labour process lean production

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

Funding & Acknowledgements

British Academy, BA

Grant: SG152260

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: research presented in this article was supported by the British Academy Grant Number: SG152260 and the Department of Economy, Northern Ireland.

British Academy, BA

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: research presented in this article was supported by the British Academy Grant Number: SG152260 and the Department of Economy, Northern Ireland.

References 10 References

1 Technology and Culture, (1990)

2 Adler, Paul S., Marx, socialization and labour process theory: A rejoinder, Organization Studies, 28, 9, pp. 1387-1394, (2007)

3 Psychology and the Real World Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society, (2011)

4 Labor and Monopoly Capital the Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, (1974)

5 Brockmann, Michaela, The Apprenticeship Framework in England: A new beginning or a continuing sham?, Journal of Education and Work, 23, 2, pp. 111-127, (2010)

6 Brooks, James, Rethinking Situated Learning: Participation and Communities of Practice in the UK Fire and Rescue Service, Work, Employment and Society, 34, 6, pp. 1045-1061, (2020)

7 Carter, Bob, Stressed out of my box': Employee experience of lean working and occupational ill-health in clerical work in the UK public sector, Work, Employment and Society, 27, 5, pp. 747-767, (2013)

8 Carter, Bob, Uncomfortable truths–teamworking under lean in the UK, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 28, 3, pp. 449-467, (2017)

9 People and Policy A Comparative Study of Apprenticeship Across Eight National Contexts, (2017)

10 Clarke, Linda, Trade-based skills versus occupational capacity: The example of bricklaying in Europe, Work, Employment and Society, 27, 6, pp. 932-951, (2013)

Shopfloor Apprentices under a Lean Labour Process: Insights from a British Car Plant

How to Cite